SAN ONOFRE: Inspector says San Onofre employees still fear retaliation

PAUL SISSON - psisson@nctimes.com

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San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station's chief resident inspector
said Thursday that he still encounters employees who do not trust
management enough to report problems at the plant, despite a rare
and especially stern warning from regulators in March.

"It's pretty evident to us that you need to continue to buildtrust," said Greg Warnick, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's topinspector at San Onofre.

In March the NRC issued a letter putting Southern California
Edison, San Onofre's majority owner and operator, on notice that
about 5 percent of plant workers feared reporting problems for fear
of retaliation.

Commission and Edison officials discussed the steps that have
been taken to rebuild trust between workers and management during a
public meeting at a hotel in Dana Point on Thursday night.

Several top executives said they have taken numerous steps, from
small meetings throughout the plant, to moving the office where
employees can report problems to a more central location. Edison
also created a new way for workers to report problems
anonymously.

But despite all that, Warnick said he and other on-site
inspectors continue to hear from employees who fear retaliation for
speaking up. He said, for example, that many tell him that they
fear speaking in small-group "stand up" meetings with top
management.

"Sometimes the people don't feel free to say everything they
want to say, even though their managers are not there," Warnick
said.

Joe Sheppard, Edison's new chief nuclear officer, responded to a
question about what the company is doing to regain the employees'
trust by saying that there is no simple switch for management to
flip.

"Trust is built over time. You can't snap your fingers. You
can't just make it happen," he said.

After hearing the exchange, some in the public worried that the
plant's upcoming installation of a second set of steam generators,
which requires cutting a hole in the plant's southernmost reactor
containment dome, could be made less safe if employees don't trust
management not to retaliate if they report simple mistakes. Edison
has already successfully upgraded its northernmost reactor using a
nearly identical procedure.

Sharon Hoffman of Carlsbad, who often expresses her distrust of
the plant and nuclear energy in general at NRC meetings, said the
commission has expressed numerous concerns about plant operations
for about two years, and yet recent reports find that problems with
worker performance persist and have been shown to be growing in
some areas.

"I would like the NRC to tell us how they are going to fix the
problem, or when they're going to shut the plant down," Hoffman
said.

Warnick responded that he has seen significant improvement in
all of the areas that the NRC has highlighted over the last two
years. But he said that making progress is simply not enough. He
said regular inspections of the plant show that Edison is operating
it safely, but that an additional "seven to eight" NRC inspectors
will soon come to the plant to oversee the installation of the
replacement set of steam generators.

Another meeting to discuss ongoing issues at San Onofre is
scheduled for December.